A new-look logo for the University of South Dakota was submitted for trademark approval Friday with what school officials hope becomes a widespread rebranding of the institution, as well as its Division I athletic department.
The "U." logo era at USD, which began in 2002, is coming to a close. The proposed "SD" will represent the entire school but get most of its play publicly in athletics, with the state's initials prominently featured to an extent that they had not been with previous logos.
"We feel like we need a logo that has a national appeal," USD marketing vice president Jeff Baylor said. "We want it to represent a flagship institution on a national and global stage."
Initially administrators expected to have an official unveiling before the 2012-13 school year, but they decided on keeping the process a more public one, short on dramatics.
"We want to be able to show people how we got here," USD athletic director David Sayler said. "If we were to try to keep it quiet and pull a curtain on something in August, I think people would feel left out."
Officials have been working with Sioux Falls advertising firm Lawrence & Schiller in search of an appropriate symbol. USD officials say they went into the process with a clear idea of what they wanted.
"There are different approaches you can take on a process like this," said Bob Fitzpatrick, USD's director of marketing. "But at some point, you see something that looks like it's been around a long time, and it looks like it's going to last a long time. We don't want to have a conversation two or three years from now and say, 'Gee, we should be doing something else.' "
Pat Schroeder, a Sioux Falls lawyer and 1976 USD alum who is a member of the "Howling Pack" booster club, gave the new logo a positive review.
"It's definitely better than the one they had," Schroeder said. "It takes me back to when a lot of the teams' uniforms had the 'SD' letters on them, so this is something new that also has some tradition."
The change was made after researching the value of USD's current logo. School officials gathered evidence confirming what several of them already suspected - nobody is quite sure where "U." is coming from.
"It's an unrecognizable generic mark," Baylor said. "That's not the reaction we want in our branding."
When the school committed itself to something different, the next step was in looking at how other two-word states and other flagship schools used initials as logos.
"No one looks at the North Carolina 'NC' and wonders what it stands for," Sayler said.
"State flagship schools using their initials is widespread - you have the Arizona 'A', the Oregon 'O', the Washington 'W' - and they're the logo for the entire university, which I think is also very important. We want a logo that will stand out and lay claim to who we are."
The athletic department branding will continue to have elements exclusive to its own marketing aims. Charlie Coyote, for instance, is going to survive the cut, Sayler said, as will some version of the paw now included in several of its athletic department insignias. The logo on the football helmet, which has undergone several changes during the past three decades, definitely will change for next season. The current logo is a paw with the soon-to-be-canned "U." imbedded inside it. The school has a new basketball court coming for next season that also will provide a canvas for the new look.
"What was great was that we all looked at this together as a university," Sayler said.
"It was important we were all connected."
When the school committed itself to something different, the next step was in looking at how other two-word states and other flagship schools used initials as logos.
"No one looks at the North Carolina 'NC' and wonders what it stands for," Sayler said.
"State flagship schools using their initials is widespread - you have the Arizona 'A', the Oregon 'O', the Washington 'W' - and they're the logo for the entire university, which I think is also very important. We want a logo that will stand out and lay claim to who we are."
The athletic department branding will continue to have elements exclusive to its own marketing aims. Charlie Coyote, for instance, is going to survive the cut, Sayler said, as will some version of the paw now included in several of its athletic department insignias. The logo on the football helmet, which has undergone several changes during the past three decades, definitely will change for next season. The current logo is a paw with the soon-to-be-canned "U." imbedded inside it. The school has a new basketball court coming for next season that also will provide a canvas for the new look.
"What was great was that we all looked at this together as a university," Sayler said.
"It was important we were all connected."
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